


Restless And Weary

by spockandawe



Series: Like The Morning Sun [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Abuse, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: After Starscream and Windblade leave, you set your calendar to ping you when their meeting is scheduled to end. You’re barely off at all, because it’s moments after you silence the alarm when you get a comm from Starscream asking if you’re still in your office. It gives you just enough time to wrap up what you’re working on and stack your datapads off to the side where nobody will accidentally knock them over.When Starscream comes in, he's definitely not as upset as he was earlier. But he doesn’t exactly look that happy either. Of course, with a whole meeting to think himself into the worst corner possible, you maybe should’ve seen this coming. Something to remember for the future. Maybe you’ll be able to head the downswing off with a few reassuring comms, or at least get some idea of what’s getting to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/158575799076/restless-and-weary-spockandawe-transformers)

After Starscream and Windblade leave, you set your calendar to ping you when their meeting is scheduled to end. You’re barely off at all, because it’s moments after you silence the alarm when you get a comm from Starscream asking if you’re still in your office. It gives you just enough time to wrap up what you’re working on and stack your datapads off to the side where nobody will accidentally knock them over.

When Starscream comes in, he's definitely not as upset as he was earlier. But he doesn’t exactly look that happy either. Of course, with a whole meeting to think himself into the worst corner possible, you maybe should’ve seen this coming. Something to remember for the future. Maybe you’ll be able to head the downswing off with a few reassuring comms, or at least get some idea of what’s getting to him.

You stood up when he came through the door, expecting him to come up to you, but he doesn’t. He pauses just inside your door, takes a single step your way, then pauses again. He finally settles back on his heels and crosses his arms. You don’t push it, but you do at least move around to the other side of your desk, so at least you don’t have that barrier between you.

Abruptly, he says, “What were you two talking about?”

“Windblade?”

“What did you tell her?”

“About what?” He doesn’t budge, just keeps watching you, all cold and distant. Ahh, this could be about to get complicated. “Not as much as you think, promise.” Still no response from Starscream. You hold out your hand. “Hey, c’mere.”

He uncrosses his arms reluctantly, but he does step up to you. Though he stops before he actually touches you. When you reach out to take his hand, he lets you do it. But he still doesn’t look anything close to happy.

He says, “You still haven’t told me what you were talking about.”

Time to tread delicately. “Well… I’m not telling her all your secrets, so I’m not telling you all hers either. Only fair. But Windblade came to ask about you.” He stiffens and starts to draw away, but you say, “Hey now, hold up. Hold on. Didn’t I promise it’s not as bad as you’re guessing?”

He’s still on edge, you can see it in his wings. But he lets you pull him in close again. You put your other hand on his waist, just for an extra bit of reassurance. He looks down at your hand, and you think he’s maybe using that as an excuse to not look at your face.

After a moment, he speaks up. “And? I suppose you started telling her every little thing she wanted to know?”

Mildly, you say, “I told her I wasn’t gonna go telling her things behind your back. Mostly I just tried to give her some background on Cybertron and aemula endurae.”

“What background?”

“General things. Just some broad strokes to give her some idea of why Cybertronians these days aren’t doing so much with the whole aemula thing. Told her about this one mech I once— He was a Decepticon, so. Y’know. Didn’t exactly go anywhere, least not before my commander had him taken care of. Hasn’t really come up between you and me, but I can go track down the memories anytime we’re hooked up, if you want to know the whole story.”

You can feel it when Starscream finally starts to relax. He stops holding his wings so stiff and high and takes that last little half step to close the distance between you. You drop his hand so you can put your arms loosely around him. You let your weight rest against the edge of your desk as he leans into you, chest to chest. He props his chin up on your shoulder and you hear him sigh heavily.

“Pretty much,” you agree. “And for the record, she had no idea. Probably safe to say the other colonies are in a similar position. Plus we can’t assume all the newer MTOs have a decent picture of the way things are for anyone else. We maybe oughta figure out some kind of way to spread the word filling folks in on where everyone else stands, before we get many more misunderstandings.”

That gets you a heavier sigh. Yeah. Seems like no matter how much you get done, the list of things you need to do just keeps growing.

You stay like that for a while. Your arms are still around him, and he puts his around you too, so that his hands rest against the middle of your back. It’s nice. You don’t have anything you have to do right this moment, and it’s comfortable to just stand there together with him.

For a klik or two you don’t do anything much. But as you look around the room, over on a shelf, the little sculptures of Starscream that Windblade made catch your eye.

You gently nudge Starscream upright. He doesn’t step _away,_ exactly, but he does step back enough that he’s taking his own weight again. You have to take your arms from around him so you can move over to the shelf, but you leave a hand on his waist, guiding him along with you.

He spots the sculptures soon enough, and because you’re watching him instead of the sculptures, you get to see the smug, self-satisfied smile spread across his face.

“They’re very pretty,” you say.

And you wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his smirk gets even wider. “Yes, I am,” he purrs.

You have to laugh. “So I guess I can assume you like them?”

“ _Don’t tell Windblade.”_

He’s leaning into your side, and you let your arm slide back around his waist. “I think that ship may have already sailed. She was there to see you earlier.”

He ignores that. “Besides, what kind of present even is this?” He reaches out with one hand, slowly turning the sculptures in place, looking at them from every angle. “Isn’t she supposed to be… antagonizing me? Bothering me? _Not_ showering me with gifts?”

“Dunno about that,” you say. “Seems to _me_ she hit the mark pretty well. And don’t look now, but I think you might have given her a bit of positive reinforcement there.”

Starscream sniffs disdainfully, but doesn’t stop admiring the little sculptures for even a nanoklik. There’s quiet for a long moment. And then he says. “Only _three hundred.”_

It gives you a jolt way down deep in your spark hearing that all over again. You don’t rightly know what to say to Starscream, because you still can’t untangle how you feel about it yourself. You were around way back when everyone was still scrambling to figure out why all the hot spots were disappearing. And you were around when Autobot command was burning through their stores of frozen sparks. And when the last of those stores finally ran out. Feels like an eternity ago. Your idea of ‘young’ is a mech who’s only one or two million years old. In the abstract, sure, you know Caminus is still viable if they can get the resources to support a hot spot. But you gave up on finding a solution for Cybertron so long ago that you still can’t quite process the idea of a mech who’s just under three hundred.

Starscream leans harder into your side, putting his arm around you. After a moment, he says, “And this? For her first time? Where _is_ her better judgment?”

And— you can guess what he means, but you have to laugh, because— You pull back, all mock-offended, and say, “ _Ow._ What did I do to deserve that?”

He catches on fast and follows after you, laughing. He drapes his arms over your shoulders. “It’s just dreadful, isn’t it? What kind of mech would have the poor taste to court _Wheeljack?”_

“I can’t even imagine,” you tell him. You’re still backing away, and he’s still following you forward, matching you step for step. It does you good to see the way he smiles. “Shows some real poor decision-making skills. I think it might be safest to take a mech making those bad choices and lock them up away from the public. Maybe even make them ineligible to hold government office, or kick them off the planet.”

Your back hits the wall, and Starscream stops laughing just long enough to lean in and kiss your faceplate. When he pulls away, you lean forward just enough to rest your forehead against his. It takes a little while for the two of you to stop laughing altogether, but you can’t say you exactly mind.

And even then, you stay where you are, chest to chest with each other. After a short silence, Starscream says, a little defensively, “I _am_ a very intimidating, dangerous mech.”

You let your hands settle on his hips. “I’m sure that’s one of the things that caught her attention, yes. Why, you planning to tell her to go find someone better?”

He leans in even closer, smiling again. “Of course not. How could she? _Anyone_ would be lucky to have me.”

That sets you both off laughing again, quieter, but still pressed against each other up against the wall, your heads tilted together. Both of his hands are on your chest, and you move one of your hands up his back to rest against the base of his wings. As the laughter quiets, he kisses your faceplate, then kisses it again, slow and lazy. You’re plenty happy to hold him to you and let it happen.

It’s too easy to let the time pass this way. There’s no urgency to it at all, but that doesn’t mean you want to _stop,_ and you’re thinking Starscream is probably feeling similar about things himself. You do go ahead and mark off your schedule as ‘occupied’ for the rest of the day.

After a klik or two, one of his hands drops lower on your chest. Doesn’t take you long at all to figure out what he’s after, because he goes straight to the tiny panel that hides your hardline port and starts tracing slow little circles around it.

“I feel like you’re trying to ask for something,” you say, “but I just can’t quite tell what it is.”

You feel the laugh in his frame more than you hear it. He pulls back just enough to ask, “Are you saying no?”

“Here? Or do you want to go somewhere a little more comfortable?”

He sighs like you’re doing him a hardship, but you can see him trying not to smile. “You don’t want to lie on a desk with me? Then I _suppose_ we can lie on a berth instead.”

Your office isn’t quite connected to your quarters, because if it was, you’d never get a proper night of recharge. But it isn’t too far away either— That way if you wake up in the night with something _really_ important you oughta take care of, you get get to your workspace fast. You do still collect up a little stack of datapads to bring with you, because you get the feeling Starscream won’t be wanting to leave for a while, and you can get a few little things done if you have the chance.

And you’re sure to get Starscream to bring Windblade’s little sculptures. If you’d been wondering whether he liked them or not, all you would’ve had to do is look at just how carefully he holds them. You’re pretty sure they aren’t as fragile as he seems to think they are, but this is just too cute for you to go ahead and ruin it.

It’s late enough that you don’t run into anyone in the halls, and once you get to your quarters, you set the datapads down in your sitting room. Starscream sets the sculptures on a side table, and you even catch him rearranging them to display them even better. You aren’t going to go giving his secrets away to Windblade, but she really did well with those.

Once you two make it to the berth, _you_ lie down. There’s space beside you, but Starscream just drapes himself over your chest instead. It makes it a little tricky to get at your ports, and you tease him that it’s feeling like he’s sending you mixed signals about whether or not he wants this, but he doesn’t make any move to change position, just settles himself more comfortably on your frame. You don’t think you’ve _ever_ known anyone so tactile as him before.

The hardline connection itself is nice and comfortable by now. Starscream is still keeping plenty of memories closed off from you, but he’s gradually unblocked enough to have a decent section of his memory open for you to see. The first thing you’re particularly aware of is Windblade— He’s still thinking about her. And he’s still on edge. That doesn’t surprise you, given how long he’d been fretting over it before she finally came to you. But that does remind you of your conversation with her, which reminds _Starscream_ that you told her about the mech you knew during the war—

And before you know it, he’s been nudged into the memory of the MTO that you… that you _didn’t_ know. You didn’t call it up on purpose, but you’re not going to shut it off after you’d promised Starscream he could see. Wish you’d had a bit of warning, maybe a moment to brace yourself, but hey. Makes you wince a little, feeling that old excitement and hope. Reliving the memories directly is a little more intense than just telling Windblade about it. You flip through some of Starscream’s memories of old Iacon to distract yourself, but you can’t totally ignore the memories Starscream is rifling through right now.

When he sees the way that ends, nobody _telling_ you outright, just the gradual dawning realization that the Decepticons you’re fighting don’t have any new weapons, that nobody’s over there anymore who can keep up with your tech— Mm. Reliving that disbelieving, angry denial is actually worse than the hope was. Starscream veers off sharply into other memories, and you feel a rush of apology and concern through the hardline. Back in your body, you feel him shift. He cups one hand around your cheek and presses a kiss to the other side of your faceplate. You concentrate enough to bring your arms up around him and reassuringly pat his back. You’re fine, it’s nothing you haven’t felt before.

Actually, you’ve got enough attention focused on telling him that you’re fine that you almost don’t notice him oh-so-innocently trying to slide into your memory of today’s conversation with Windblade. You cut that right off and get hit with a wave of overblown, theatrical offense.

You pull far enough back in the connection that you’re just in his current thoughts, not the older memories. “Hey now,” you tell him. “Said I wasn’t going to go giving either of you the other one’s secrets, didn’t I?” You settle your arms better around him, hold him more closely. “I’m not favoring her, I’m just not going to get caught in the middle of a pair of mechs trying to one-up each other.”

He’s trying to muffle how much emotion bleeds over, but some of the relief comes through in the hardline, even if it isn’t enough to wipe away all of the worry. Starscream pulls back out of your memories too, enough that he can sigh and say, “You don’t want to be caught in the middle? What kind of selfish, _horrible_ person would ever prioritize self-preservation?”

If he’s making jokes, he’s not doing all that badly. “Honest, I was trying to just give her general information. She didn’t have a clue— But once she got a picture of how bad it was, she understood. She did want to know about you in particular.” That gets you a ripple of unease. You reassure him, “I told her I wasn’t going to spread a mech’s personal business around behind his back.”

And— Somehow that’s the exact wrong thing to say. Through the hardline, you get hit with a moment of pure _panic_ before he slams his side of the connection shut. He’s pushing away from you too, shoving himself off you, fighting against your arms around his back. You’re confused, but you let him go until you realize _wait,_ your _cables—_

You sit up and catch his wrists before he can go too far and yank something loose. And immediately feel like a monster when you see the look on his face. You drop his wrists, but he stays frozen where he is. His face smooths over, goes all cold and distant.

He says, “What weren’t you telling her?”

You’re—lost. “Nothing. I wasn’t telling her anything. That’s what I just said, that I wasn’t going to—”

“What do you know? You said you wouldn’t tell her my personal business— which means you _do_ know personal business that you _aren’t_ telling her. So _what do you know?_ ”

You hold your hands up, speak softly, as reassuring as you can. “Starscream. I don’t know anything. Promise.”

“You _said—”_ He cuts himself off. But he doesn’t look any happier. His side of the connection is still locked tight shut.

“I think I phrased that badly. I meant... as a general policy. In general, I’m not going to go telling secrets. Not that I knew anything specific to hide. Starscream. Really. I promise.”

You don’t need the hardline to read the disbelief on his face. He isn’t making a move to leave. But he isn’t moving back towards you either.

After a long, silent moment, you add, “Check my memories, see if I’m lying. I’m wide open. I’m not hiding anything from you.”

It’s a few tense nanokliks before he takes you up on that. And then he digs right into your most recent memories, like you’ll suddenly take that offer back. As he sifts through, you can feel the honest confusion you felt—that you’re still feeling. He pulls on every connection to older memories that comes up, and none of them turn up any answers, no secret information that you’ve got stored away. And he can feel the genuine worry and concern that’s taking up most of your current processing power.

He still thaws slowly. He edges forward again, still going back over and over those memories. You don’t reach out to him, not after how he looked at you before. It takes until he’s right up against your chest again, kneeling across your lap, his arms draped around your neck and his chin on your shoulder. Then he finally says, “You _are_ allowed to touch me, you know.”

You’re still careful as you settle your arms back around him. You rest one hand between his wings, and finally feel him relax into you, just a little. He’s still going through those recent memories, even though he can’t be turning up any new information at this point. When you gently rub the base of his wings, you can feel a little more tension go out of his frame. Across the hardline, you feel him nudge weakly against the closed-off memory of your conversation with Windblade. You still don’t let him in, but his side of the connection opens enough that you can feel a trickle of wry humor. That’s good, at least. That’s improvement.

Now. You didn’t know any secrets before. But after a reaction like _that_ … you can guess that there’s something there. Something real ugly. And you can feel Starscream pretending he doesn’t feel those thoughts going by in your head. So you can also guess what kind of reaction you’re going to get if you bring it up directly.

But you have to at least try. “You can talk to me if you need to. Or want to. Anytime. It sounds like something bad went down?”

“ _No,_ ” he says.

He can feel your processor file that away as a lie and pretends not to notice, but you feel the rush of angry humiliation across the hardline.

You’re not going to push right now. You’ve already upset him enough for one evening. And you’re still feeling plenty rattled yourself. So for now you sit there with him, quiet and calm, just holding each other. His side of the connection opens back up gradually, giving you access to more of the memories he’s let you at before. He’s still lingering in your most recent files, just flipping through them and back through the old memories they connect to.

You’re like that for a while. But it’s getting late and you’re hungry. And maybe you can— “Want to have some energon? Together?”

“I refueled earlier. But I’ll sit with you while you eat.”

Mm. While you’re at it, you might as well give him another nudge. “You ought to go out for a flight with Windblade,” you say. “Bet you’d enjoy that. It would give you a reason to get back in the air.”

He leans the side of his head up against yours. “I just went out for a short flight yesterday.”

Yeah, your processor files those away as lies too. Which you can feel Starscream flatly ignoring. You’re not going to keep pushing. Not tonight. He looks exhausted, never mind everything you can feel across the hardline. But you’re not letting him think you’ve forgotten about these things either.

After you’ve disconnected your cables and gone out to the sitting room, you still pour two cubes of energon. You give one to Starscream—he takes a single sip and sets it aside—and sit beside him on the couch, drinking your own cube. Starscream doesn’t even wait for you to finish before he worms his way into your lap. It... isn’t subtle. You almost catch a wingtip in your optic, and you’re honestly surprised he doesn’t manage to knock the cube out of your hands. Even once he’s settled lying across your lap, your right arm is basically pinned underneath his wing.

You ask, “Have you ever considered a grounder alt mode?”

He snorts. “That is the single most offensive thing any mech has ever said to me. _Get out_. We’re done. Hand me a datapad.”

You shuffle one-handed through the datapads you brought before passing him a set of meeting minutes. He sighs heavily as he starts flicking through the document. Yeah, that’s about how you feel about the infrastructure development plan you’re reading.

You wait a klik or so before suggesting, “You seem tired. Did you want to get some recharge?”

Starscream shakes his head. “I’m not tired enough to sleep.”

Okay, maybe you’ll push a _little._ “Maybe try, for just a few kliks? Don’t even have to go anywhere, you can do it right here if you want. I’m not moving.” When you reach across with your free hand to touch between his wings, you can feel him shiver.

He still hesitates. You’re pretty sure he’s not lying about not feeling tired. You’re also pretty sure he is actually exhausted. And you’re _very_ sure that he doesn’t want to be reading meeting minutes right now. But he makes a decision. He wriggles backwards off your legs until just his head is still in your lap. He only barely misses catching his wing on your finial, and you think that if you turn your head too quickly, you might lose an optic. But that’s fine.

Starscream takes a little while to get arranged to his satisfaction. You wouldn’t have thought your lap was the most comfortable surface out there, but hey, as long as he’s happy. His right hand is curled loosely against your thigh. He turns his face into your chestplate, and you can see his optics dim. Now it’s your _left_ arm that’s pinned, but you can manage to reach around his wing just enough to rest your hand on his back. And he’s not in recharge. His systems are running too loud for that. But this will be better for him than spending his evening fighting government documents. That’s what matters. You let your thumb brush over his plating, a slow, steady rhythm, as you pick your datapad back up and settle in for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/158575799076/restless-and-weary-spockandawe-transformers)


End file.
